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Wood fire heaters: the hidden killer

Heath Gilmore

The air pollution from wood fire heaters now poses a bigger immediate health danger to Sydneysiders than cars or cigarettes.

Health experts say the growth in wood fire heaters and the resulting smoke accounts for more than 60 per cent of Sydney's winter air pollution, triggering complications among asthmatics, emphysema and chronic bronchitis sufferers.

In July, an estimated 83,000 heaters are responsible for up to 75 per cent of fine particle pollution in Sydney’s basin, according to the NSW EPA. Known as the new asbestos, fine particulate matter is a key component of smog, which can penetrate deep into the lungs.

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Standards Australia is reviewing new technical standards for wood fire heaters for this country and New Zealand. However, critics say the settings for emissions - a maximum 2.5 grams for every kilo of wood burnt - are 20 years behind best practice countries and will do little to stop fine particle pollution.

Asthma Foundation CEO Michele Goldman said Australians should be alarmed by the dangers posed by wood fire heaters. She said the small particles produced were the greatest concern because they travelled into people’s airways, some even reaching the alveolus, with direct access to the bloodstream.

"Australia has the toughest tobacco laws in the world and imposed strict new standards on new SUV vehicles (adding $980 to the cost of a new vehicle), which has reduced deadly PM2.5 emissions, dubbed the “new asbestos,” by more than 99per cent since 1989," she said. "Yet, just one wood heater produces emissions more toxic than cigarette smoke and generates as much PM2.5 each year as 370 SUVs each driving 20,000 kms."

Ms Goldman said the Standards Australia committee had so far had failed to take into consideration the concerns of health groups . She said the committee was dominated by the wood fire heating sector and industry groups with no medical experts among its membership.

Australian Lung Foundation spokesman Dr James Markos said wood fire heaters should be banned from urban areas. He said real-life emissions from new wood-heaters had little relationship to measurements from a perfectly operated test model under laboratory conditions.

“There is no safe level of wood fire smoke in urban areas,” he said.

In 2006, the then Chief health officer Denise Robinson told a public inquiry at NSW Parliament House that between 600 and 1400 deaths every year could be attributed at least partly to Sydney's foul air. Pollution was also a factor in about 3 per cent of all lung cancer deaths in the Sydney basin.

For Mellisa Love, the advent of winter is a dangerous time for her five children. Two sons Ephan Jones, 6, and Braxton Jones, 2, are diagnosed asthmatics. After 4pm, none of her children are allowed outside their Blacktown home because of the hanging wood fire smoke, potential triggers for a major asthmatic attack.

The early morning starts for weekend sport pose a unique threat.

“On a Saturday morning, 20 minutes before his game, Ephan has to take a hit from his Ventolin,” she said. “In July you get those hazy mornings, and the Ventolin takes the edge off the smoke.

“I don’t know what else to do, I can’t stop him from playing with his mates.”

A spokesman for Standards Australia said the review of wood fire heaters was done to reduce the amount of allowable emissions of particulate matter to benefit public health. He said the technical committee representatives included a number of regulatory agencies, the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand, industry and from the Consumers Federation of Australia to ensure balance.

The review, which had started in November 2012, was near completion and only awaited New Zealand ministerial approval prior to publication. It is expected relevant authorities would mandate the new requirements one year from publication.

BEHIND THE SMOKESCREEN

The EPA found that wood-heaters in winter are the major source of Sydney’s wintertime health-hazardous fine particle emissions. Other sources such as road transport, industry, and non-road equipment are a much smaller fraction of the total.

Fine particle pollution is compose of particle less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter. One micrometre is one millionth of a metre.

Over a five year period woodsmoke PM2.5 emissions increased from 4503 tonnes to 5669 tonnes in 2008.

Between 2008 and 2011 the number of Sydney households burning wood for heating increased from 70,700 to 83,000.

In the Sydney region, domestic solid fuel combustion contributes 47% of PM2.5 particle pollution. In July PM 2.5 is 75 per cent.